On scars

As a child, I kept a list of all my scars in my butterfly spiral-bound notebook.

I’d write down where it was on my body; its shape and shade; how old it was and how it came to be.

But of all the details I pencilled in, the story behind each one was my favorite part. It was the story that made me proud of my scars.

If you asked about my scruffed up knees, I’d proudly tell you,
“Oh this one? I got that one sliding into home plate — without knee pads.”

If you saw the white, dime-sized oval on my shin, I’d say,
“Oh this one? I slipped on the ladder coming out of the lake. No biggie.”

Each newly achieved marking was celebrated, was seen as a badge of honor.

I loved my scars because I loved getting to show off how tough I was.

Fast forward 15-some years, and I have a lot of new scars on my 5'2" frame.

But now, my scars are from surgeries — not pavement scrapes or childhood antics. And surgery scars are different.

I’ve had three knee surgeries, and two gastro surgeries. And I fully knew all of those surgeries were going to happen. I scheduled them, did the pre-op appointment, fasted before. And even though they were premeditated, almost voluntary obtainments, I subconsciously think of them as involuntary.

I think, “I didn’t chose this for my body.”

Sure, I still shrug them off.

“Oh these three sans-serif apostrophes on my knee? Meniscus repair. No biggie.”

And unlike my scrapes as a kid, I feel these scars every day. Because every time a doctor took his (or her) scalpel to my skin, they cut through layers of epidermis and muscle — going deeper than any of my past scar inducers. And when you go that deep, you don’t just get a surface-level kind of souvenir. You get scar tissue.

And scar tissue makes sure that your scars never leave you — instead they only intensify, with physical tightness and emotional weightiness.

When I say all this, I’m really thinking about one scar in particular. You see, when I was 22, I obtained my largest scar yet. Three inches long, two inches below my belly button. I describe it as a mini C-section scar, minus the promised reward of a 7lb 2oz squalling infant.

I went in to the hospital on a Friday thinking that I’d be out by Monday. But the day after my surgery, I could barely keep my eyes open.

I laugh back on this minute detail now, but I’d saved up multiple episodes of The Great British Bake-Off to watch while laid up in the GI unit at Northside Hospital. I distinctly remember my laptop sitting on my swivel tray table, Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith on the screen, and me drifting off to sleep.

Why? You might ask.

Turns out I was bleeding.

There was a muscle tear just below the surface of my incision. My hemoglobins dropped, and I was rushed down to imaging to get a scan. I remember waiting in that basement hallway with yellow-ish walls. They injected me with contrast (which is a weird feeling, let me tell you), then returned me to my mechanically-operated bed while we waited to find the source of my bleed.

In no time, I was given one unit of blood to get me back on the right path. But thanks to my bleeder, nurses would take my blood twice a day (sometimes in the middle of the night) to make sure my hemoglobins were stabilizing. They’d rotate between blood vessels — top of hand, inner arm, inner wrist, right and left. I became a meek and mild patient, learning to stretch out my arm without command. I knew to tell them that my vessels were bigger and better on my right — simply because it’d be a bother if they’d have to poke me twice. Taped-on gauze post-draws became just another medical adornment.

If you’d seen me on that Tuesday following my surgery, you’d see that I was wearing the same gown I put on before being wheeled back to surgery Friday. I hadn’t eaten anything since Thursday night. I hadn’t showered. I could not sit up on my own, and walking required the support of my IV stand.

To put it simply, I was a mess.

My days were marked by gruel-like meals, nurse shift changes, and my twice-a-day laps around the mostly-empty hospital halls.

I shuffled along those linoleum floors not because I felt up to it, but because I knew I needed to. I needed to keep moving. And when I was not moving, my whole body just ached and ached from sitting prone and poorly postured. At one point, I remember thinking my back and neck and shoulders hurt more than my stitched-together flaps of skin.

I ended up staying in the hospital for 7 days, not 3. On the day after my mom’s 53rd birthday, I went home.

So, that scar.

It never did heal right. Turns out that under my incision (and thanks to the internal bleeding), there was all this dead blood and tissue. So from January to March 2020 (squeamers, skip this next part), my incision would re-open and bleed. At one point, I texted my doctor (yes, she gave me her cell number) a picture of what appeared to be tissue coming out of it. She panicked, her first thought being that my organs were literally exiting my body via that opening made by her scalpel.

It finally did close fully (after one doctor visit where she literally cut away the dead layer of skin). But today, my C-section wannabe scar throbs dully all the time — a less cool version of Harry Potter’s lightning bolt scar. And even when it’s not that tight or achey, I can feel it. It’s a hard thing too describe, but I don’t really know what life is without its presence.

“We’ll do a scar revision surgery,” my surgeon would fuss. “I’ve got a buddy in plastic surgery who owes me a couple favors.”

I learned later that you can’t ever get rid of scar tissue — not really. Even if you do the scar revision surgery and call in the best of the best plastic surgeons, you’ll only create more scars.

I go to a lot of doctors. It’s just a fact of my life.

And anytime I go to a new office, enter a new waiting room, sit on top of a sterile examination table, I recite my medical chart like it’s a grocery list.

July 18, 2022, is just another one of those visits.

This doctor is a rheumatologist (my second), and for some reason I feel gung-ho about this one, up for the challenge. Like this one will give me all the answers and easy solutions that I’ve always longed for.

I gather up all my records and notes like someone filing a case against a guilty party. I write a timeline of my health, which really is my life.

In my collecting, my arming of myself, I decide to read over all my charts. All the notations other people made about me.

I criss-cross portals and lab results and visit summaries. I read the observations made, the medications listed, the diagnoses given. I see me through their detached lens. And I want to cry.

Is this what I am? Am I all these things performed on me?

I can picture every waiting room, every office. But at the same time, I have wiped ten years of visits and bloodwork from my memory.

I forgot about the GI doctor with the charming British accent that I saw at 16. I forgot about the PT I saw right after I graduated college. I forgot the estrogen patches. I forgot about the alternative medicine doctor I saw in college — heck, I forgot the one I saw last year.

My heart is sick reading all the medical words on the screen. Because it’s so, so much.

And somehow, somehow I stumble upon the intraoperative notes from my November 8 surgery. There are files upon files, and I scroll through them all.

That is when the tears come.

At 12:13 — They cut me open.

13:48 — They closed me up.

I see names I never knew, but who were there, who bore witness to this work. Scrub personnels, and scrub reliefs.

Who was this Regina Chevalier that is listed?

They (whoever they is) wrote that my left arm was extended, that my left leg was secured in a stirrup.

Dr. Silverman was my anesthesiologist. I have no memory of him.

Oh God. I can see the compounds of the anesthesia used on me.

I can see my heart rate, my blood pressure during surgery.

At 14:03, Dr. Schertzer scrubbed out.

Somewhere between all the names and meaningless numbers, I start to sob, sitting there on my sofa with my computer on my lap.

I sob and I grieve for that unconscious girl, being cut open and moved about, entirely unaware of what was going on around her and on her and in her.

I sob and I grieve the unusual amount of pain I’ve experienced in my short life.

My counselor says that that moment, when I cried unexpectedly, is one of the truest, realest moments I have to go off of.

Why did I cry then, and not in the hospital? Not when I found out that the gastro issue had reared its head once more, and I might have to have surgery all over again? Not when I found out that I’d need another knee surgery?

Sometimes I feel like a UFC wrestler or a heavyweight boxer, pinned down my opponent, cheek on the mat. An elbow is over my neck, the full weight of another on top of me. And I’m smacking the mat as hard as one can when their oxygen is being cut off.

SMACK! I need a let up.

SMACK! I can’t take this anymore.

SMACK! Someone, just give me some air.

SMACK! Please.

That feeling fades. The tears stop. I pick myself up. I move on.

Because I’m still tough.

I still take all the doctors, all the therapy appointments with a good dose of cheer.

I still recite my medical history like a grocery list.

But the scars? They’re still there.

My scars stay with me. And I’m learning that it’s okay if I’m not proud of them.

It’s okay if I grieve them instead.